Uddhav Thackeray had last visited Ayodhya in June, 2019
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray will visit Ayodhya to pay homage to Lord Ram in March, on the completion of 100 days of the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government, senior Sena leader Sanjay Raut said on Wednesday.
"We have a relation with Ayodhya. The relation is of devotion and trust. We have our government with Uddhav Thackeray as the Chief Minister thanks to the blessings of Lord Ram... Our duty is to pay homage to Lord Ram on the completion of 100 days of our government. Chief Minister Thackeray will go there and bow to the feet of Lord Ram. Ministers from our alliance partners can also accompany him," Sanjay Raut was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.
"It is a matter of faith. Rahul Gandhi also goes to temples. He went to Somnath and other temples. The government runs on social justice, employment and other welfare measures," Sanjay Raut added.
This will be Uddhav Thackeray's first visit to Ayodhya after the Shiv Sena called off its alliance with the BJP over power-sharing disagreements after the Maharashtra assembly election results were announced in October last year.
The Shiv Sena chief was to visit Ayodhya in November last year, but postponed it after the core committee of Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party or NCP resolved to form an alternate government in Maharashtra.
The Sena then partnered with the NCP and the Congress to form the government of an alliance that came to known as Maha Vikas Aghadi.
Uddhav Thackeray had last visited Ayodhya in June, 2019 and offered prayers at the makeshift Ram Lalla temple along with 18 newly-elected MPs of his party.
Earlier in November last year, a five-member bench of the Supreme Court, headed by then Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, delivered a unanimous verdict on the Ayodhya land dispute case that gave all 2.77 acres of disputed land to Ram Lalla (the infant Lord Ram). The top court also directed the central government to provide the Sunni Waqf Board five acres of land, in a "suitable, prominent place in Ayodhya", to build a mosque.
With inputs from PTI and ANI